


The brain's job, not the circumstance's.

by MountainDont



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Bipolar Disorder, Depression, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-09-13 09:37:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9118063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MountainDont/pseuds/MountainDont
Summary: "Here in the Commonwealth, it's a bit of a stigma to talk about depression. But feeling it doesn't make you any less of a person, and neither does talking about it." Nick comforts a suicidal Nora who reaches out to him in a last attempt to feel like there's someone out there that understands her. And Nick, being a problem-solver by nature, helps share the burden.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Nick is just one of the more amazing characters I've ever encountered in a Fallout game. Ignoring other legends like Butch and Hancock, I'd have to say that he's the best. He's understanding, to the point where he was willing to forego his other cases to help a distraught mother search for her child. If that isn't a testament to what kind of a character Nick is, then I don't know what else to say.
> 
> Implied bipolar disorder, post-partum depression, and PTSD. Also Nick's a real boy.

“Can I ask you something?” Nora asked from her place on the ground. She had both legs stretched out in front of her, both arms wrapped under her head to serve as pillows.

He glanced down at her, the fedora casting a benevolent shadow over his ruined face underneath the bright moonlight. His eyes shone in sunbright tones, contrasting with the mystery of the night by showing her the clarity of vision: Revolutionary methods of man and machine that she had never seen before she met him. Nick was everything from her old life and then some, adding in these little complexities that boggled her mind and somehow made her feel right at home. She loved a good mystery, just as much as he did. He’d told her on more than one occasion that it was why they made such a great team, and it was also why she never traded him out for any of her other friends. They just worked so well together, in the way inquisitive minds searching for greater meaning usually do. “You mean other than that?” Nick asked. “Sure. Ask me anything.”

She sat up, propping her body up on her elbows, and while she first figured it might be best to meet his gaze, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She instead directed her tired eyes to stare at his tan slacks, which were somehow less ruined than his coat. With a defeated sigh and a coerced chuckle, she said, “Never mind. It’s stupid.”

Before Nora could move to lie down again, Nick stopped her. “Now hold on a second,” he said. “I’m sure those games might have flown pretty far back before the war, but we don’t have time to sit and toss this stuff around. If it’s important enough to bring up, then it’s important enough to talk about. That’s how things work now.”

She knew he wouldn’t let this go, but Nora couldn’t help but wish she had just kept her mouth shut when she had the chance. These sorts of moods struck her every now and again, and she had only known Nick for a couple of months – barely long enough for him to understand how drastic her shift in mood could be sometimes. It wasn’t defined by any two extremes, but rather the symptoms that came with each. A sense of belonging could easily be replaced with a wish for longing and the fear of death became the will to destroy. Some people called Nora an enigma, impossible to predict or understand. She called herself the personification of misery, and perhaps somewhere along both those paths, she was hoping Nick walked along the middle and could show her the definition of self-realization.

But Nora had an inexplicably large list of problems, piled up so high that even the stars stared up in dismay at the top. She couldn’t possibly expect the synth to take care of them all, not even when her own husband had been unable to. But somewhere between meeting Nick and getting to know him, she’d begun hoping that he might be that missing link – that connection between mind and body that she’d been so desperate in finding.

She picked at a dead branch that lie next to her, wondering if it felt like it was right at home, buried not underneath the dirt, but rather the constant radiation storms and the burden of the world pressing down upon it. If it did, then Nora would gladly take its place. “You meet all sorts of people doing your job, don’t you?” she asked him.

“Well, I have to say that meeting someone like you made me realize I haven’t seen it all, but yeah, just about.”

“Someone like me?” Nora finally looked up at him, trying to get a read on Nick’s expression as he sat next to her, his back against the barren tree that they’d stopped to rest under for the night. “Am I a burden or something?”

The moment she said it, she wished she could take it back. Nick looked down at her like he was just now realizing what sides of herself she had been hiding from him all along. He stayed nice and quiet for a long period of time, nothing around them except the tension and the dirty air. Finally, he offered her an answer, and the patience – like she was delicate and valuable and couldn’t be held or touched at risk of breaking her more sensitive points – damn near killed her. “I meant someone frozen in a vault for over two hundred years, like one of those pre-war Salisbury steaks,” he clarified. “Even though the years treated you a hell of a lot better than they did that mush. When I first heard your story, it made me rethink everything I thought I knew.” She hummed, feeling the guilt for having doubted him stab her at every vertebra.

The expectant pause between them grew until Nora knew that he was not going to ask the obvious question that probed at his mechanic mind, which somehow had the spark of life in it, able to make him more human than anyone else that she’d met here, in the Commonwealth. “Sorry,” she said. “I don’t know what I’m going on about.”

“Well, neither do I,” Nick admitted. “And I don’t like knowing. So let’s do what we do best and figure it out.”

“We don’t have time for that,” she argued. She could solve mysteries with the detective better than the rest of them, but the fear of discovery still weighed in on her, an unwanted visitor. The self-damning hatred loomed over her, taunting her, insisting that she’d brought this up. It was hers to carry, but she’d chosen to unload it on another. It made her sick to her stomach.

“As I said, only thing we have time for right now is the important stuff. And if this isn’t important, then I’m a real boy.” Nora chuckled despite herself. His humor shone in at odd times, much like his eyes. When she least expected it, she could see him staring at her, through her, knowing the little corners of herself that she hadn’t even discovered herself. “Talk to me, kid,” he said. “You’ll be surprised what this bag of nuts and bolts can help with.”

Nora sat up all the way, pressed her back against the tree, next to Nick on his right side, and stared up at the sky. It gave her an overwhelming sense of vertigo, but that might have been a symptom caused by present company. “When I was fourteen, I wanted to die,” she said, deciding that if he wanted to hear it, she may as well punish him for his insistence. He remained silent, waiting for her to continue. “I don’t know why. Life was good back then. I had good parents, a good home. It was better than what most people had. Most other Americans at that time couldn’t afford food, because it was a rare commodity during the war, but I was still fed pretty well because my parents were rich. It got worse when I had Shaun. Everyone around me was so happy, and I knew I should have been too, but I wasn’t. I had the world going for me. I had no reason to want to die, but there it is.” She shrugged, held her hands, palm up in her lap, waiting for some sort of answer to fall into them. “Here I am, twenty-four and two hundred years later, and everything’s just gotten worse.” He said nothing. “That’s it.”

He hummed, realization sparking in his mind. Suddenly, the bigger picture unfolded in front of him, revealing the full feature, and Nora stood front and center. He’d figured her out with nothing more provided than a simple synopsis of what her life had been like. She watched as he stared off into the distance, yellow gaze honing in on nothing in particular as he searched, not for conclusions but for methods. Finally, he said to her, “From where I stand, it doesn’t matter whether or not someone has a reason to want something. They want it or they don’t, and that’s the brain’s job to decide, not the circumstance’s. I’ve met all sorts of people in my time as a detective, yeah. People who lost their kids, their friends. People who were, understandably, suffering from distance and significant depression. Here in the Commonwealth, it’s a bit of a stigma to talk about it. I guess it was back before the war, too.” Nora nodded. Indeed, it had been. If she’d ever told her parents about what she had been going through, they would have told her to tough it out, that she had no reason to feel so horrible. In a way, she was afraid that Nick was going to say the same thing, but he’d made it clear that he wouldn’t. That was just the way Nick Valentine was, too patient and too understanding for his own good. She wondered how anyone could ever be that perfect.

He continued, “More often than not, oppressing the feelings just makes them worse. Feeling it doesn’t make you any less of a person, Nora, and neither does talking about it. This something you’ve been thinking a lot about lately?”

Nora felt it coming on – that little itch in her nose and the burning in her eyes. The hot flush of her cheeks. It wasn’t sorrow. It was the shame of feeling the sorrow. She drew in a wet, shaky breath and nodded her head, staring at Nick’s coat as his eyes bore into her temple. Slowly, he wrapped his arm around her, metal hand coming to grip easily at her shoulder, and she fell into him, feeling at home at once. Her cheek pressed into his angled shoulder, a cold tear sliding from the inner corner of her eye and over the bridge of her nose. She wiped it away with her wrist. “Stick with me, kid,” he said, his voice humming in his chest. “We’ll get it sorted out.”


End file.
